We Made It!

Hello everyone,

It has been quite the first 24 hours of this journey. After meeting at the church at 7 for a prayer send-off, we loaded up the coach bus and headed to JFK at 1 in the morning. The Lord was faithful in our travels and we made it through all the airport fun with no problems. We arrived in Port-au-Prince right on schedule, and just by looking out the window I began to realize that this nation is indeed the poorest of the poor. The poverty is striking - whole cities that are set up in a small plot of land - made up of tents and tarps. How these people are able to get food and survive is a question I keep asking myself. I pray that as we go through these next 10 days the Lord will give each of us a deeper understanding of His heart towards the poor and the broken. I think it is a good thing for these youth to be exposed to this reality of our world and to wrestle with it. I'm believing this will open their eyes in an all knew way as they see and experience things they never have before.

A BIG praise in this first day is every single piece of luggage was retrieved in Haiti. It was an awful lot of bags and a blessing that they all made it through. Everyone is feeling quite exhausted - most only got 1-3 hours of sleep last night. But nonetheless there is an excitement to get started and to work like crazy these next 9 days and to be a part of extending the hope of God to these people. Continue to pray for strength and energy from the Lord and that a spirit of irritation or grumbling would not enter in to the group. It is certainly very hot down here and we will be keeping close tabs to make sure noone is getting too dehydrated. Tomorrow will be our first work day - working all together to build a tin home for a family to live in. So far everyone is healthy - praying it remains that way!

Thanks for your prayers. They are powerful and absolutely necessary. We will keep you posted on the progress!